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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27046267">A Tale of Midnight</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope'>pinstripedJackalope</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>TGGTVAV Challenge Fics [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue Series - Mackenzi Lee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Creatures &amp; Monsters, Alternate Universe - Fae, Body Horror, Dreams and Nightmares, Fae &amp; Fairies, Fae Magic, Folk Tales, Folklore, Henry Montague Sr.'s A+ Parenting, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Monsters, Poison, Sort Of, Suicidal Thoughts, Superstition, Swordfighting, kind of, like it's spooky but it's also mercy being dumbasses, listen, listen one of them is a monster, lowkey horror honestly, monsters haha, so it counts, the deerman, they're not fae and not gods they are just.................... you know</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:27:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,590</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27046267</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinstripedJackalope/pseuds/pinstripedJackalope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><div class="center">
  <p>A story about the creatures that walk the night.  When you come face to face with a monster who is somewhere between a Fae, a God, and a Nightmare, what will you do to survive?</p>
</div><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><div class="center">
  <p>“It is said that on days when the sun is dim and the breeze is high…”</p>
</div>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Henry "Monty" Montague &amp; Scipio, Henry "Monty" Montague/Percy Newton, Percy Newton &amp; Scipio</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>TGGTVAV Challenge Fics [13]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638925</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>TGGTVAV AU Challenge Fics</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Part One: The Deerman</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/gifts">em_gray</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenthunderstorms/gifts">goldenthunderstorms</a>.</li>


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25278598">into the tomb</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/em_gray/pseuds/em_gray">em_gray</a>.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>It's finally here!  Round 12 of the TGGTVAV AU Challenge!!  This one is a very special fic, because it has a secondary challenge--monsters!  </p><p>Not all the monster fics are AU challenge fics (LOOKING AT YOU, EM), but this one is a double challenge using both the monster challenge and the AU challenge.  What the monster challenge is that basically, we (me, em_gray, and goldenthunderstorms) dared each other to each write a fic that shared one theme, two tropes, and one line of dialogue.  The theme was monsters, the tropes were sickfics and swordfights, and the dialogue was "How do you think this ends?"</p><p>As for the AU challenge, ATOM takes 'local myths/superstitions' from into the tomb by em_gray as its link.  Three chapters are currently done, they will go up one per day until they're all up and then, hopefully, the next three will be ready to post.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  
</p><p>Photo credit <a href="https://a-ghost-named-k.tumblr.com/post/632164282918977536/turns-out-i-never-posted-this-a-tale-of-midnight">here</a>.</p><p> </p><p>They say that on days when the sun is dim and the breeze is high, it’s unsafe to go to the fields of wild grass and flowers in the clearings in the woods.  If you go, you just might stumble upon something out there, something lying in wait, obscured by the shadows of the clouds and the motion of the grass.  It won’t be a pleasant end to your day.  Be careful where you step, they say—the last thing you want to lose is your foot, or your leg, or your life.</p><p>“You stay safe now, you hear?” says the woman on the corner, who sells Percy his bread.  It’s overcast today, and she’s kept her children inside, watching the clouds nervously.</p><p>Percy isn’t sure if she means safe from the rain and the flash floods it tends to bring, or if she means safe from what supposedly waits, hungry, in the fields of wild grass.  He doesn’t ask.  He’s used to keeping quiet, buying his bread with a small smile and even smaller talk, listening to what the locals have to tell him and then going on his way.  He’s good at listening, good at watching—he’s good at keeping his head low, despite his height.  Unobtrusive.  Background noise.  Suitable for the half-African apprentice of the local silversmith.</p><p>It is this skill, this watchfulness, that brings him to a market stall down the way from the bread lady.  He follows the trail of winking light until he reaches the stall, kneeling down by the man—much too thin, all skin and bone—who is selling what appears to be most of his belongings.</p><p>Percy reaches a hand forward, but does not quite touch.  “How much for the silver?” he asks, his voice quiet.</p><p>The man’s lip trembles.  “It’s not for sale.”</p><p>Percy nods, standing again.  He hauls his basket up on his back, preparing to walk the ten minutes back to the silversmith’s cabin when he hears a cry, a wrenching sob, that calls him back.</p><p>“Wait—wait.  The silver—it’s a family heirloom, but I will sell it for six copper coins.  I need the money, you understand?” says the man, who is starving.</p><p>It’s a good deal.  A steal, even.  Percy swallows, and reaches into his pocket.  He has eight copper coins left over from the bread—his uncle will be happy to get new silver.</p><p>“Here,” he says, and presses all eight coins into the man’s hand.  “I am thankful.”</p><p>The man nods, wretched, and pushes the medallion into Percy’s hands.  “May the Gods look down upon you with patience rather than anger,” he says, solemn.</p><p>Percy takes the medallion home, ducking inside just as it begins to rain.</p><p>***</p><p>The sounds of the forge are heavy on the air as Percy sits at the table in the workshop with a set of wooden scales before him, weighing the medallion against their collection of little iron weights.  Eleven grams… he writes this down on a scrap of parchment, the smell of the grease pencil wafting toward him on the rolls of heat coming from the forge. </p><p>It’s a strange thing, the medallion.  Not quite round but rather oval in shape, with a hole cut through the middle and strange markings around the edges.  They’re not in a script that Percy recognizes, but he’s hardly been anywhere, really, so what does he know.  He rarely even understands the locals’ talismans, let alone something that undoubtedly came from somewhere far away.</p><p>He sighs, turning the silver over and over in his hands.  He’s not allowed to melt things down on his own yet, so he’s determining the real worth of the medallion, which is decidedly more than eight copper coins. </p><p>Frowning, Percy taps his pencil on the table.  Then, glancing back to his uncle—still occupied with fanning the coals—Percy begins to meticulously note down the markings on the paper.</p><p>He’s just finishing the final stroke when his uncle, sweating and smelling of smoke, finishes what he’s occupied with and walks over.</p><p>“How much?” he asks.  Also a man of few words, Percy’s uncle waits somewhat impatiently as Percy passes over the slip of paper.</p><p>“What is this mumbo jumbo?” Uncle asks after a moment, turning the paper around.</p><p>Percy, who is starting to get lightheaded from the heat, frowns for a moment before realizing what the man means.  “Oh.  It was written on the medallion.”</p><p>Uncle huffs.  “We’re melting it down, what do we care what’s written on it?”</p><p>Percy opens his mouth and closes it again.  He’s hot, and feeling a little shaky—never good signs.  He tries to find an answer to the question but he can tell he’s failed when Uncle sets a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head.</p><p>“…I can carry on from here,” Uncle says, gruff, and Percy knows it for the dismissal it is.  He gathers his things, leaving the medallion behind for his uncle to melt down.  He’ll be more helpful in the house at this point.</p><p>After a moment of consideration, he tears off the bit of the paper with the markings on it and folds it into his pocket.</p><p>***</p><p>Inside the house, more aptly called a cabin, Percy paces for a moment.  He knows Uncle gets upset about his… affliction, and the fact that he can’t tolerate heat, but he can’t do anything much about that.  What he can do, however, is small chores around the house to make up for it—like polishing the various silver pieces that sit around, tarnishing over time. </p><p>He goes to the mantle first, plucking down his uncle’s prized possession—a rapier, made in the style of the mainland, that was poured from pure silver.  It was his uncle’s grandfather’s, and his grandfather’s grandfather’s before him, passed down through the generations.  It is the most beautiful thing they own—never worn to battle, it is instead ornamental, the mark of an artist and the heritage of a family that has smithed silver for centuries.</p><p>Percy, unfortunately, does not have claim to this heritage.  He comes from his Aunt’s side—born to a mother who died at his birth and a father who grew sick and succumbed not long after, Percy has nothing left to him except his father’s violin.  A violin… there is nothing in that to be proud of, so he takes down the sword and polishes it, careful, until he dozes off where he’s sitting, cloth in hand.</p><p>He wakes, and for a moment he has no idea where he is or what has become of him.  There is a noise—a strange noise, that of some sort of beast, he thinks, stepping foot over foot over foot.  He sits up, rigid and alert, as his mind wakes—but when he focuses there is only silence.</p><p>He must have been imagining it.  Heard his own thick breathing in the darkness and assumed something that was not there.  He swallows, willing his beating heart to still in his chest.  The clock on the table declares it well past midnight—the moon is high in the sky, and he has missed dinner by several hours.  No one woke him, but that is not unusual—he’s not that hungry, anyway.  He should go to bed.</p><p>Stretching, Percy sighs to himself.  He’s not particularly eager to sleep after the scare he had, slight as it was.  He might as well go to the workshop to tinker at some of the projects he’s been working on under his uncle’s supervision.</p><p>The workshop is mostly dark when he opens the door, and he shivers from the walk from the house to the shop.  The forge is still hot, but not quite burning—the coals are alight with embers still, smoldering slowly.  He reaches for the gas lamp that hangs by the door.</p><p>It is then, with his hand reaching out and the moonlight pooling in through the door behind him, that he sees the shadow.</p><p>It’s huge, is the first thing he thinks, his eyes going wide and his breath catching in his chest.  He falters, his hand trembling as he hears it again, that thud of massive footfalls, now behind him and <em>so much closer than before</em>.  He wonders if it has seen him, whatever it is—his question is answered a moment later when he feels breath, hot and slick, on the back of his neck.</p><p>With a cry, Percy throws himself forward, tumbling over the shop table.  He hits the stone floor hard, rolling until he hits the far wall.  It’s a dizzying tumble, and he fully expects to be overtaken by the time he gets his bearings—but when he raises his head it’s to find that the… the creature, if it can be called a creature and not a man, is still at the door, ducking his massive head to see inside with eyes that glow red in the darkness.</p><p>He’s huge, that much is certain.  In the shape of a man but decorated with enormous, curling antlers adorned with glowing red berries that Percy knows at a glance are poison.  His face is handsome, though cold, his hair like spun gold.  He is dressed all in black, in thick furs shot through with streaks of red and gold.  As he takes another step Percy realizes that his feet are cloven hooves, at least the size of a horse’s if not larger.</p><p>He’s startled when, a moment later, the man-creature speaks, his voice a low boom in the night, rolling like thunder.</p><p>“What have you done with my amulet?” he asks, and steps all the way inside the workshop, back hunched and eyes glowing.</p><p>Percy swallows and stares, his mouth gaping uselessly.  He gets the feeling that this man will not repeat himself, and he’s right when, a moment later, the thing’s face twists into anger and then—and then—oh god, then it <em>splits open height-wise</em>, from the forehead to the chin, like a melon might split at the behest of a knife, like a bear trap might clack open in anticipation of the hunt, like a carnivorous plant might yawn wide in search of critters to swallow down, and the monster—because there is no doubting now how monstrous he is—lets out a <em>roar</em> that forms the words, “<em>WHERE IS MY AMULET</em>?”</p><p>Percy screams, the sound wrenched from his throat by pure fear.  He has no idea what the monster means but he’d give it up in a heartbeat, in a <em>second, if only he knew what the monster was after he</em><em>’d hand it right over</em>—</p><p>It’s then that he notices the thorns that ring the monster’s head like a crown, right at the base of his massive antlers.  The paper in his pocket crinkles—the markings are the thorns and the thorns are the markings, and with a terrified whimper Percy raises his hand to point to the latest statue that sits, birdlike and perched on the workman’s bench, made from the starving man’s medallion.</p><p>The monster turns, its face hanging open, slick saliva oozing from somewhere deep inside it, dripping down to the stone below.  Percy fumbles a step or two, sticking to the monster’s back and edging back around the table as the monster reaches forward and, with clawed fingers, plucks up the little bird sculpture.  Percy is almost to the door when the monster’s claws curl into a fist around the sculpture, and silver begins to run like blood between his fingers, splattering to the floor.</p><p>“You <em>dare</em>…” the monster says, and Percy knows, by the way his blood runs ice cold in his veins, that he is about to be killed.  It is with this knowledge that he sucks in a breath and <em>dives for the door</em>.</p><p>The monster lunges after him, but his height and his bent back hinder him in the small space and Percy hears a muffled thud as the monster gets caught up in the doorway.  Then Percy is diving through the moonlight and into the trees, his shoes pounding on the forest floor and his breath coming in swooping gasps as he runs, runs, <em>runs</em>.</p><p>There is a roar behind him, the monster forcing his way out of the workshop door.  He howls into the night, and Percy waits with dread in his heart to hear the thundering of hooves following him into the treeline—</p><p>—until suddenly a pale hand flits out of nowhere, snagging him by the collar and wrenching him down amid the roots of a massive fallen tree.</p><p>Percy yelps, trying to pull away, but the hand is met by a second that latches over his mouth, both of them holding him fast.  In the distance he hears the great, rumbling footfalls once again, coming slowly across the muddy earth.  In moments the monster will be visible through the trees—when it sees Percy caught tight he’ll be dead meat.</p><p>If.  If it sees him.</p><p>Percy stops trying to pull free and instead pushes back, away from the monster and into the darkness, hoping against hope that he’s not falling for a trap.  If the hands are another of these beasts and he’s traded one evil for another…</p><p>A snuffle from the forest, and Percy trembles, hiding as deep in the shadows as he can.  He can feel a body behind him, pressed to his back as it holds him.  The monster out in the night is gaining—how long he will hunt, how far he will go, Percy doesn’t know.  All he knows is that this is his only chance, and one sound, one wrong move, will be the end of his life as he knows it.</p><p>The footfalls come, one after another, closer and closer.  Percy closes his eyes, shaking where he sits, as a great shadow fills the spaces where the moonlight used to sit.  There is no hurry to the monster’s movements, no rush—it is the patience of a persistence predator, slow and steady, built with the stamina of something Other.  He cannot move fast, hindered by the trees, but he will keep going to the ends of the earth itself to find his prey, never running out of strength, never running out of energy, never running out of breath.  He always, always wins.</p><p>Except… not this time.  This time he walks right on past, heavy hoof-falls renting the wet earth, until he has walked far enough to disappear into the distant moonlit fog.</p><p>Percy lets out a shaky breath, his trembling hands holding tight to the arms wrapped around him.  He sits there, frozen, until one of the arms extricates itself, rising to press two blackened fingers to his forehead.</p><p>It’s then that Percy shakes himself into motion.  “You—you saved my life,” he says, and goes to turn around—but there is no one there, the arms gone in an instant, as if they were never there at all.</p><p>***</p><p>“And you swear you had nothing to do with this?”</p><p>Percy shakes his head, distant, as his uncle gestures toward the cold, hard silver that has seeped into the cracks in the floor and hardened there.  In truth, he’s not so sure.  It isn’t so strange for him to be out and about in the workshop late at night, and he had this… this… <em>dream</em> last night, a dream about monsters and liquid silver and moonlight.  The amulet, the chase, the tree roots he hid under… all of it dances on the edge of his consciousness.  He dreamed that after the stranger had saved his life and he turned to find no one there, he walked home in a daze and sat at the kitchen table with his uncle’s sword in front of him.  For hours he sat, staring at the intricate engraving that made up the pommel and the guard, until his uncle got up in the morning with the sun to begin stoking the forge.  It was then that he woke up, sitting up straight in his seat with the polish rag in his hand.</p><p>The dream, and the silver on the floor, both… they’re a conundrum, and Percy has no idea what they mean.  He knows it wasn’t his doing, but his uncle doesn’t seem to believe him, if the way he sets him to work cleaning the floor and picking silver out of the cracks between the stone is any indication.  “Wash your face next time you want to lie,” Uncle says, marching, fuming, from the workshop.</p><p>Percy blinks.  Then, with slow, careful movements he raises his hand to his forehead, touching it. </p><p>There is soot, black as coal, on the pads of his fingers when he draws them back.</p><p>Shaking his head, Percy sets to work cleaning the floor.  Aside from the silver there’s also a strange, slimy substance, its sweet smell cloying.  Percy thinks of the saliva dripping from the monster’s split face and shudders… but there must be another explanation.  Tree sap, or something.  There was no monster and there was no encounter—there are no hoof prints in the drying mud outside the workshop.  It was a dream, nothing more—the most likely explanation is that Percy sleep-walked his way out to the workshop in the light of the moon and in his confusion conjured up a monstrosity to accompany him.  It wouldn’t be the first time.</p><p>He’s on his hands and knees for an hour before the realization that he hasn’t eaten since lunch the day before hits him in the form of his stomach growling, hunger pangs licking up his insides.  He sighs, setting his cleaning supplies aside.  He heads inside, past his Aunt—who is sitting in the living room with her sewing—and into the kitchen, pulling down the bread he bought the day before.  A few cuts of fresh deer meat, a slice of cheese, and he has a nice sandwich.  He takes it out to the back porch and sits there, looking out at the trees with a contemplative tilt to his head…</p><p>…only to frown at the first bite he takes.  He slowly swallows, the sweet tartness of fruit on his tongue.  Something is off, the sweetness wrong—it should not be there.  He swallows again, peeling back his bread and his cheese, a slow, sweeping dread crawling into his chest.</p><p>Berries gleam at him in the dim light coming through the trees.  Red and bright and very, very poisonous, just like the berries on the monster’s antlers.</p><p>It was real.  It was real.  Good God in the heavens above, it was <em>real</em>.</p><p>Percy drops the sandwich, red berries spilling out over the wooden boards of the porch.  His breath is coming hard and fast as he stares down, uncomprehending, his vision full of red, red, <em>red</em>.  The berries, the amulet, the monster… all of it really happened.</p><p>And the person who saved him… the arms that circled him, the fingers that left their sooty mark on his forehead… they were real, too.</p><p>As if in slow motion, Percy kneels on the wooden boards, reaching down for the berries.  He gathers one, two, three in his hand before he realizes what this means—that he isn’t safe.  This is a warning, a threat—the monster will be back.  He doesn’t know how, doesn’t know when, but the monster will come.  It’s probably out there, watching, even now.  Percy swallows hard, the taste of sweet poison on his tongue, and he knows that even now it’s working its way into his system.</p><p>He can only think of one thing to do.  Gathering his wits, Percy closes his fingers around the berries in his palm, and goes to seek out the apothecary.</p><p>***</p><p>The first cramp hits as Percy enters the village proper ten minutes of an eternity later.  He breathes through it, placing foot in front of foot.  His vision is swimming, his heart racing in his chest, but he’s walked this path many a time, in search of potions and balms for his ailment.  In all that time, however, he has never seen it so dead as it is right now.  He walks through the market, past the place where the woman on the corner who sells him his bread should be, but there is no one there.  The village is quiet, silent—it’s as if they know that something monstrous has visited and they’re hiding away, hoping to keep out of its way.</p><p>The apothecary’s shop is, thankfully, open when Percy reaches it.  He stumbles inside, leaning heavily on the wall.  His stomach cramps again, and before he can stop it he’s leaning forward and vomiting on the floor.  His whole body is covered in a cold sweat, his limbs quivering and his head spinning.  The apothecary, Pascal, lets out a cry, coming around the counter.  Percy opens his mouth to speak but his tongue seems to have grown three sizes, swelling against his lips—he instead holds out his fist, letting the berries slip through his fingers and into Pascal’s hand.</p><p>Pascal swears, seizing Percy under the arm before he can collapse.  “What have you gotten yourself into?” he asks, his voice tight with a terrified tension.  Percy wants to laugh, wants to scream, wants to vomit—but he does none of those things and instead lets the apothecary half drag, half carry him to the back of the shop.</p><p>He’s been back here before.  For several weeks when he was sixteen he spent a lot of time back here, leeches on his arms to let out the sick blood.  It didn’t do much good, but at least it means he’s familiar enough with the space to stumble his way to the bed, listing heavily to the side.  The poison is like his affliction, his fits.  He can feel unconsciousness looming over him as he shudders madly in his skin, everything roiling about inside him, a vicious storm. </p><p>“Easy…” Pascal says, as he heaves over the edge of the bed.  And then, once the bout is over, “You must drink this now.”</p><p>Percy shivers, his numb, rubbery fingers reaching for the bottle that Pascal is holding out.  The liquid inside is blackish, a slurry of charcoal and citrus and something else, and he can hardly get it down.  But he does, and then he’s drifting, the black on the edges of his vision making way for fever dreams.  And in his dreams, cloven hooves and red berries and a face, a handsome, furious face that splits from top to bottom, yawning open wider and wider and wider, until there is nothing but the cleft, and the saliva that runs through it like a river at the bottom of a canyon, and the teeth like jagged rock faces, and a roar, the roar that vibrates the very planes of the earth itself with a rage that cannot be matched by something mortal, all gleaming silver under the liquid light of the moon.</p><p>When Percy wakes again, a night has passed.  He raises his brown hands to the morning sunlight streaming in the window.  His mouth tastes like decay, and he’s fairly certain that his stomach is eating itself for how empty it is, but he’s awake, and alive, and he has an apothecary to thank.</p><p>Standing up makes him lightheaded, and he groans, stumbling into the little bedside table.  A moment later Pascal is there, hand on his elbow, guiding him to sit back down.  “Easy, easy,” he says, an echo of the night before.</p><p>Percy scrubs a hand over his face, feeling dried sweat and salt on his skin.  His throat is dry, scraping, but Pascal is there already with a pitcher of water, pouring him a glass.  “…I’m okay,” he says after a long moment.  Then he remembers exactly what happened, and he looks up into Pascal’s lined face, biting his lips.  “I’m okay… but I won’t be for long.”</p><p>***</p><p>Percy explains his predicament over a breakfast of oatmeal and cut fruit.  He doesn’t dare eat as Pascal does, stirring it around and around in his bowl for fear that it’s poisoned with the same red berries.  Pascal has taken a seat beside him, pulling up a chair, and it’s so familiar a scene that Percy almost feels at ease. </p><p>Almost.</p><p>“—and then this hand came out of nowhere and grabbed me.  It pulled me into the shadows and hid me as the thing walked past.”  Percy looks up at Pascal, nervous to see what he’ll think of this crazy tale.</p><p>Pascal hums.  He doesn’t look like he quite believes Percy, but he doesn’t quite look like he doesn’t, either.  “This… person,” he says, as if reluctant to label them as such.  “This person who saved you.  Do you think you could find them again?”</p><p>“I don’t… I have no idea who they are, where they came from or where they went, I just—I have nothing to go off of except the soot on their fingers.”  That’s nothing to go off at all.  Percy groans, burying his head in his hands.</p><p>With a tilt of his head, Pascal sits back, his chair creaking.  “Hm.  You might have more than you think you do.  And I think I might know someone who can help with that.”</p><p>Percy looks up.  “You don’t think I’m crazy?” he asks.</p><p>With piercing eyes, Pascal meets his gaze.  “I’ve heard stranger things,” he intones.  Then he gets up, giving Percy a pat on the back.  “We’ll get this figured out in no time, hm?”</p><p>Percy nods.  Then he sits back, rubbing his eyes as Pascal exits the room.  He’s hungry and exhausted, feeling gross and unsettled and… well… lucky.  Lucky that the mystery person saved his life, lucky that the berries didn’t kill him, lucky that the monster didn’t come for him in the night, when he was weak and feverish from the poison, exposed and ready for the taking. </p><p>Unless the monster did come.  He freezes where he sits, a horrid thought coming to him.  If the monster went to the silversmith’s cabin, if it came for his aunt and uncle instead—oh, god—</p><p>He’s just struggling to his feet once more when Pascal comes back in, a little old woman dressed in black on each arm.  Pascal must read the panicked expression on his face, and offers the ladies two seats before coming up to Percy and taking him by the elbows.</p><p>“Your aunt and uncle are fine,” he says.  “I had Marco run and check in on them.  They’re worried about where you disappeared to, but they don’t have a clue what’s going on.  I told them it was a fit.”</p><p>Percy wilts, tilting his head down and taking a deep breath through his lightheaded relief.  “Thank the heavens,” he says.</p><p>“No,” says one of the old ladies, who Pascal introduces as Ernesta.  “It is not the heavens you should thank, but rather the shadows.”</p><p>“The shadows?” Percy asks.  “What do you mean?”</p><p>Ernesta tilts her veiled head to the side.  The second woman, Eva, leans forward and trails her fingers over Percy’s forehead, speaking in a foreign tongue.</p><p>“What is she saying?” Percy asks, tilting his head forward.</p><p>“She is saying that the monster you ran into is a monster of the moonlight.  He is called the ‘deerman’.  He is neither deer nor man, but rather a perversion of both.  He and his children rule where the moonlight touches.”</p><p>Eva speaks again.</p><p>“The deerman can only appear once every moon cycle,” the first old woman says, translating.  “At least, that is the truth for the oldest of his kind.  Once they reach a certain age it is painful to cross the barrier from their world into ours.  Their children, on the other hand, can slip more easily through the barrier—they tend to be playful things, things that get their sooty fingers in all sorts of strange places.”  Ernesta leans back, taking Eva’s hand and touching the soot on her fingers.  She hums.  “That is what touched you, what saved you—a child of the deerman.  Why they saved you I do not know, but it is them you must find—they are your only chance now.”</p><p>“How do I find them?” Percy asks.  “Do you know?”</p><p>The women turn to each other, whispering in the foreign tongue for a long moment.  Then Ernesta turns back to Percy, and he thinks he can see the gleam of her eyes behind her veil.</p><p>“It is said that on days when the sun is dim and the breeze is high…”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Part Two: The Deerman's Son</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Percy finds the child of the deerman who marked him.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The path through the forest will only get Percy to the small, winding creek they use for washing.  To reach a field in a clearing of the trees he must go in further, to places where humans rarely go except to hunt, and never when the clouds drift across the sky like they do on days when the children of the deerman are out.</p><p>Today is not as overcast as the day before, the clouds drifting intermittently across the sky, but Percy has to believe that it is overcast enough.  He sucks in a breath, still feeling weak and hungry—he managed to eat a few bites of dried meat from Pascal’s cabinet without the sweet taste of poison on his tongue, but it wasn’t much, wasn’t enough.  He didn’t have the time to sit and eat—he needs to find the child of the deerman who saved him, and soon, or he may not have another chance.</p><p>He goes home, to stop by and tell his aunt and uncle that he’s okay and to grab his violin just for comfort and for courage, and then it’s into the forest for him, following the path just like that until he reaches the creek.  He steps carefully through it, the water’s spring chill seeping through his boots until he reaches the other side, where it drips slowly away again.  He looks ahead, into the trees, trying to judge which direction will most likely hold a clearing and a field the likes of which he so desperately needs… but every direction is the same, and it’s straight ahead that he eventually picks, completely at random.</p><p>It takes him nearly an hour to stumble upon a likely clearing.  It’s filled with high grass, swaying sharply up to his knees in the breeze that is slipping through the trees at Percy’s back.  It grows stronger in the space sans trees, whipping the vegetation into miniature waves like the call and crash of the ocean.</p><p>Percy swallows, standing at the very edge of the clearing.  His boots are sturdy, but he recalls the massive face of the deerman and he shudders to think how little protection even his sturdy boots would afford him if he were to stumble upon that mouth once more.  He dithers, unsure, at the fault line between safety and risk… until he’s stood there so still for so long that he sees a small brown field mouse, having come out of hiding, now sniffing around at the edge of the grass in the corner of his eye. </p><p>Percy turns slowly, carefully.  The mouse takes no heed of him, pawing at the grass until it produces a seed.  It chews at it for a moment, teeth working at the shell, before suddenly it raises its small head and, like a snake charmed by a snake-charmer, drops the seed and begins to walk out into the field, disappearing into the grass.</p><p>Percy takes a deep breath.  Then, pulling on the sleeves of his sweater, he steps out into the grass after the mouse, following it as silently as he can.</p><p>It’s easy enough to keep it in sight.  The mouse moves as if in a trance, following some scent that Percy cannot smell.  Over rocks and around the base of the tall plants it goes, and Percy steps faster to keep up. </p><p>He’s halfway out into the field when he loses sight of it amid the roiling grass.  He crouches down, parting the grass with his hands, trying to see just a little farther, just a little more, a sense of anticipation growing higher in his chest until—</p><p>He doesn’t see the jaws until they’re lunging at him from the underbrush, snapping closed where his hand had been just moments before.  Percy screams, falling backwards into the grass, his head going under the surface.  He twists around, clutching at the strap of his violin case, trying to catch sight of the monster—but he can’t see, there is movement all around him, vegetation swaying in the breeze and the shadows of the clouds moving across the clearing and he can’t, he can’t—oh, god he’s going to <em>die</em>—</p><p>But no.  He doesn’t.  Instead he hears a laugh, high and delighted, coming from behind him.  He jerks around, and there, sitting in the grass with him, is a young man with a face that, had he been human, would have been hardly older than Percy himself.  He’s the spitting image of the deerman, except… well… smaller, really.  Youthful.  Less angry.  His antlers are buck-sized rather than enormous, convoluted knots, and they are adorned with ivy, the vines tangled up in them.  He’s wearing furs, but softer, shorter furs—rabbit furs, as opposed to the thick bear furs that the deerman had.  And his eyes… his eyes are a startling blue, bright and clear as he looks over Percy with interest.</p><p>He’s holding the mouse in his hands, it’s little nose poking out between his soot-blackened fingers.</p><p>“I’m sorry, but you should have seen your face, darling,” the young man says, his grin wide, and sharp, and wicked between two pale, dimpled cheeks.</p><p>***</p><p>“You—you’re the deerman’s child,” Percy breathes, stunned.</p><p>The smile on the young man before him twists, turning wry.  “Deerman, huh?  Is that what the humans are calling him these days?” he asks, and laughs.  “But yes, that I am.  I’d say pleasure to meet you, but knowing my father…”</p><p>“Right.  Your father,” Percy echoes, his voice distant.  He stares at the mouse, trapped in those blackened fingers, squeaking every once in a while.  “Are you going to… eat that?”</p><p>“I’m not hungry,” the young monster says.  He grins, and his teeth, even the ones in his human mouth, are sharp and wicked like a shark’s teeth.  Percy swallows.  The monster laughs.  The mouse squeaks, the clouds drift, the grass sways, and god, Percy has very much misjudged this encounter.  He has no idea how to get what he needs now that he’s found a child of the deerman.  How does one ask someone who saved their life to do it again?  How does one do such a thing when it is a monster they’re asking?  Especially a monster who is now cooing at the mouse in its hands, watching the little rodent scramble over its knuckles and oh, god, he said he wasn’t hungry but how long will that last, how long will he go before he decides he’s hungry after all and that a mouse won’t satisfy him—</p><p>“There you are, Henry,” says a second voice, again behind Percy, again causing him to spin around, his poor heart pounding in his chest.</p><p>It’s a girl.  Well, a young woman.  Someone on the cusp of womanhood, though clearly of the same family as the other monsters that Percy has met.  She has little doe antlers that peep out through her light brown plaited hair, and a dress of thick, knitted wool in a greenish color.  Her hands are clean as she rests them on her hips, standing above the swaying grass—except for her fingernails, which are stained black, black, black.</p><p>“Mother needs help with the little one,” the girl says.</p><p>The young man, Henry, pouts.  “I’m busy, Felicity, as you can clearly see.”</p><p>“Busy with what, terrorizing a human?  Please.”</p><p>“As if you have anything better for me.  You’re a girl—why don’t <em>you</em> help mother with the little one?”</p><p>“Don’t be a prick, Henry,” the girl, Felicity, sighs, straightening her dress.  “If you won’t come willingly then I’ll just have to make you.”</p><p>“As if you could.”</p><p>“Oh?  Do you think I don’t know about your habit of swiping human moonshine from the hunter’s cabin?”</p><p>Percy, who has been watching this back and forth with rapt attention, has utterly forgotten that he’s dealing with two very real, very scary monsters.  Until, that is, Henry suddenly rises to his feet—which are cloven hooves—and his face splits open from his forehead to his chin, a snarl <em>ripping</em> through his throat and into the air.</p><p>Percy freezes, clutching at his violin’s strap in terror.  The girl, however, just rolls her eyes and responds in kind, her face also splitting open.  The two monsters hiss and snarl for a long moment, a moment where Percy dares not move for fear of interrupting and having them both turn their yawning mouths on him.  Then, as if they’ve come to some understanding, the monsters both close their vertical jaws, turning away from each other with a huff.</p><p>“Well,” Henry says, and winks at Percy.  “It was nice to meet you, darling, but I must be off now.”</p><p>And with that he leans down, releases the mouse into the grass, and begins to walk away, Felicity following close on his heels.</p><p>They’re just reaching the edge of the trees when Percy regains his bearings.  He can’t let the monster go.  This is his one chance at survival, at protecting what he loves, and it’s <em>walking away from him</em>. </p><p>“Wait!  Please, wait—”  Percy yelps, and stumbles to his feet, chasing after the two monstrous siblings.  They’re shorter than he thought they would be, when he was viewing them from underneath—neither of them have the massive height of their father and are, in fact, rather short.  “I need your help!”</p><p>“And why would you think we can help you?” Henry asks, flicking his blackened fingers out.  He’s dropped all his playfulness, all his laughter, his demeanor now spiraling down into a category that Percy might name as <em>moody</em>.</p><p>“You helped me before, didn’t you?” Percy asks, persistent.  He does not miss the way that Felicity’s head whips over, her eyes drilling holes into the side of Henry’s head.</p><p>Henry raises his lip.  “I saved you once, sure.  Alas, you’re a hale and healthy human—you’ll be fine if you run and hide,” he says, dismissive.</p><p>“No man can run forever,” Percy reasons, a tinge of desperation in his voice.  “I <em>can</em><em>’t hide forever</em>.  I have people, a family—I need to protect them.  Don’t you have people you need to protect?”</p><p>The monster huffs, turning his nose up.  “<em>Humans</em>.  You always think you know so much but have never stopped to think things through.”</p><p>“What do you mean, think things through?”</p><p>Henry raises his hands wriggling his blackened fingers and the nails that are just starting to grow into claws at the ends of them.  He grins, sharp teeth and dimples both on display.  “What need do we have of protection,”  he says, “when we are the things that go bump in the night?”</p><p>Percy swallows, staring, as Henry turns once again to leave.  He watches as his chances get slimmer and slimmer with each step of Henry’s cloven hooves, as his savior disappears once again, this time with no intention of coming back.  It is then, as he knows that his death looms before him, that he grits his teeth to ask, “If you don’t care then <em>why</em>—why did you save me at all?”</p><p>The monster comes to a pause, and though his back is turned Percy can see the tension in his shoulders.  Felicity has paused as well, a few steps ahead, glaring back at her brother as if she can see some weakness in him that Percy cannot. </p><p>“Why save you?” he asks, and his head turns to the side, his profile twisted in… is that <em>guilt</em>?  It’s there and gone before Percy can quite tell, the monster’s face schooling itself into an easy smile.  “Perhaps I just thought it was a waste to kill something with such a beautiful face,” Henry says.</p><p>Percy grits his teeth.  He’s not sure to say to that, to the casual dismissal that the monster is giving him, not sure how to plead his case any longer.  The monster shakes his head, and in a moment has disappeared between the trees, as if he was never there at all.</p><p>***</p><p>The clouds in the sky continue to drift as Percy sits, hidden, in the tall grass in the clearing far below.  They are beautiful, in their distance—but they are also untouchable, unlike the tears that are running down Percy’s face.</p><p>He sniffles, running his hand across one cheek to wipe away the wetness.  It doesn’t help.  More comes moments later to replace it, unceasing, like the water of the creek coming from down the mountains to the East.</p><p>It hurts.  This knowledge that time is running out.  That Percy’s life has been permanently altered once again by something out of his control.  It was bad enough the first time, with his parents—or the second time, with his ailment—and now he is to die, possibly along with the only family he has ever known, come the onset of the next moon cycle.  The hunger gnawing at his gut will be the last thing he ever knows, aside from fear and pain, pain, pain.</p><p>At least he has his violin with him, he reasons.  He takes it out of its case and holds it for a long moment, taking the comfort it provides, as immaterial as it will be in the end.  He thinks for a long moment about the parents that he lost, too long ago to remember.  Then, finally, his shaking fingers becoming sure, he raises bow to string and begins to play.</p><p>The music flows from his hands with a sincerity he’s rarely allowed.  It’s not taboo in the village, per se, but musicians aren’t very welcome out in public.  It’s said that music played outside the boundaries of a home attracts Others, and the superstitious townspeople avoid anything that will draw anything Other like it’s poison.  Percy has always had to play and practice closed up in the forge after dark, when no one could hear him.</p><p>Now… even if it’s true, and something does appear, it doesn’t much matter.  Percy has a feeling that no fairy can save him from his fate.  And if they can, well… it will come at a price that he won’t be able to pay, so why bother trying?  He’s lost either way.  He has nothing left to worry about now, thus he plays.  He plays his sorrow, and he plays his joy—he plays his life as he knows it, until he gets the feeling that someone is watching and he draws his bow to a slow stop.  He turns around and—</p><p>“Hello again, darling.”</p><p>Percy yelps, falling onto his back with his violin on his chest.  His heart pounds as the deerman’s son smiles down at him, deep shadows in the dimples of his cheeks and his antlers cutting across the sky.  “Henry?” Percy gasps. </p><p>“The one and only,” Henry says.  He dips one eyelid in a wink and Percy… he feels the fear seeping from him.  In its place arrives a deep sense of frustration.</p><p>“Why have you come back?  To torment me some more?” he asks, frowning.</p><p>Henry shakes his head.  Then, his grin settling down into a softer smile, he reaches down with blackened fingers, offering his hand.</p><p>In a daze, Percy hesitates a moment before he reaches up to meet it. </p><p>The monster’s hand is… warmer than Percy expected, as Henry hauls him to his feet.  Percy stares at the black soot that has transfered from Henry’s hand to his before carefully wiping it off on his sweater as Henry snickers softly.  Then he squares his shoulders, standing up to his full height, a good eight inches taller than the deerman’s son, not including the antlers. </p><p>“Why are you here, child of the deerman?” he asks.</p><p>Henry huffs.  “I want to make a deal.  Your life… for something in return.”</p><p>“And what is it that you want in exchange for my life?”</p><p>A shrug, and Henry looks away, his entire demeanor screaming flippancy.  “Alcohol will do.  Moonshine is best.”</p><p>Percy purses his lips for a long moment.  Something that the monster’s sister said is ringing in his mind—something about how Henry had stolen moonshine from a hunter’s cabin.  She’d made it sound like the deerman would not be happy to learn that his son was drinking—it was blackmail material, in fact.  Percy isn’t sure why or how this is important, but he files it away for later. </p><p>Percy purses his lips.  He can probably come into possession of alcohol, perhaps using the help of the merchant sailors that come to the port to the West.  As far as deals go, this one is heavily biased in his favor.  Percy has no idea what changed the monster’s mind about helping him, but as he and the monster shake, hand to claw, on their agreement… well. </p><p>He dares not question it. </p><p>***</p><p>“The first thing you’ll need to understand to survive the deerman is that his power is weakest in direct sunlight and strongest under the light of the full moon.  It is then, when the moon is at its fullest, that he will come for you.”</p><p>Percy nods, fiddling with the strap of his violin.  The two of them are walking back toward the village, in the shade of the trees.  Henry is speaking about himself as he speaks of his father—he illustrates his point by stopping underneath a massive oak tree and demonstrating said powers by dropping a single seed on the ground below.</p><p>Percy doesn’t know what he expects, but when a vine begins to grow up the side of the tree he watches eagerly, waiting to see the culmination of the monster’s powers.  He finds his mouth dropping open as the vine grows heavy with fruit, melons rounding out and turning a pale orange until they are so ripe that they split open at a tap of Henry’s fingers.  Percy leans forward, examining the food.</p><p>“The power the deerman holds is an extension of the universe itself.  He cannot create from nothing, but rather facilitates that which naturally occurs,” Henry says.  He glances up—Percy tries to school his expression so that the hunger he feels isn’t plain on his face, but he must fail because Henry offers the succulent melon, a gleam in his eye.</p><p>Percy can’t help it when he reaches forward.  His stomach is so empty, aching, but… he falters.  “It’s not poisoned, is it?” he asks, looking back up at Henry with wide eyes.</p><p>Henry rolls his eyes, a perpetual smile still on his face.  “We made a deal, darling.  It would hardly make sense to poison you now.”</p><p>Percy again reaches, and again falls back.  “I… I’m not hungry,” he says.  He knows he won’t last until the next moon cycle if he doesn’t eat, but the thought of eating something provided by a monster has his stomach turning.</p><p>With a wry twist to his mouth, Henry hums.  “Here,” he says, and digs out some of the ripe, juicy fruit with his claws.  He raises it to his mouth and sets it deftly on his own tongue, keeping eye contact with Percy the entire way.  Then he chews, swallows, and grins, as if to say ‘see?  Nothing wrong!’</p><p>The display is entirely overdramatic, but still, something loosens in Percy’s chest.  He takes a piece of the melon from the monster and takes a bite of it, the juice running down his chin.</p><p>The taste on his tongue… he moans aloud quite without meaning to.  It tastes <em>divine</em>.  He swears he’s never eaten something that tasted so sweet and pure.  Henry laughs at his side, helping himself to another clawful as Percy tears into the fruit with wild abandon.</p><p>He is four pieces in, his stomach no longer growling for food inside of him, when he raises his head to find Henry picking at his teeth.  “So you… you don’t just eat meat?” he asks, tentative, as he wipes the juice from his face.</p><p>“I’m what you call an omnivore, darling,” Henry says with a grin.  “I grow vegetation, and I attract critters—it’s all the same to me.”</p><p>Percy nods.  Then, feeling bold, he asks, “Have you ever… eaten a human?”</p><p>The monster chokes, doubling over.  Percy flinches away, hands raised, wildly unsure what just happened or what he should do—until, that is, he realizes that the noises coming from Henry’s throat are laughter. </p><p>There’s something about that, about the way he laughs so freely, letting the mirth move through his entire body, that has Percy relaxing just slightly.  A being who laughs like this at the idea of eating humans… well, they can’t be all bad, now can they?</p><p>***</p><p>They come on the creek a few minutes later, and Percy, his head clearer than it has been since his encounter with the deerman, realizes all at once that he’s walking with a monster.  They can’t just go traipsing into the village together; Henry will scare everyone, and they’ll probably both wind up full of buck shot.</p><p>Percy turns to his companion to raise these concerns—and blinks, face to face with a rather… <em>ordinary</em> looking Henry.  Gone are the antlers, the sharp teeth, and the furs—he is instead dressed in simple cotton trousers and a large sweater similar to Percy’s own.  His feet are still cloven hooves, but the folded cuffs of his trousers shadow them—you’d only see them if you were looking closely, like Percy is now.</p><p>He hums, raising his eyes to take in Henry’s human form a little closer.  He’s… well… handsome is the word that comes to mind.  His face is heart-shaped, not quite delicate but somewhere close, his dimples scored into his cheeks by his eternal smile.  His hair is golden on top, swept back to reveal how it shifts to a rich, chestnut brown underneath.  And his eyes… so brilliantly blue…</p><p>“See something you like, darling?”</p><p>Percy starts, shaking himself.  “N-no,” he says, and clears his throat, looking away.  He’s never seen someone so confident in their skin, so casually beautiful.  The monster doesn’t have to try, for his face is a gift from his father, whose beautiful visage is perhaps the only thing pleasant about him. </p><p>Percy dares to glance to the side, and is rewarded by another light laugh.  “Suit yourself,” the monster says, and steps off the little forest path and onto the cobblestones of the main road, looking around at the log buildings with interest. </p><p>“Come on, this way,” Percy says, and gestures off to one side.  He takes Henry around the long way, staying out of sight of the market.  He’s not sure if the people are out today, or if they’re still feeling the unnatural chill of the deerman’s coming and have decided to stay inside for a while yet, but he doesn’t dare take the chance. </p><p>It takes a bit longer the back way, but soon enough they’ve come upon the Apothecary.  Pascal is sitting out front in a rocking chair, the voices of the grandmothers drifting past him from somewhere inside.  He raises his eyes as Percy approaches, taking in Percy’s tear-tracked face before turning to the ordinary-looking monster at his side.</p><p>Pascal is an observant man.  He needs to be, in order to pitch and sell his wares to people who come into his shop.  He can spot a man suffering from stiff joints from fifty paces away.</p><p>He spots Henry’s hooves within seconds, his eyes going comically wide.  “It worked,” he breathes, staring down as if the hooves will disappear the moment he shifts his gaze.  “It actually… actually worked.”</p><p>Henry grins, his human teeth a touch too white.  “Oh yes,” he says, sounding amused.  “Now are you going to invite me inside?”</p><p>Pascal hesitates, clearly remembering the tales of the blood-suckers that the locals bring up at every bonfire by the coast.  You never, ever invite a blood-sucker inside—not even for a moment, an instant, for tea.  Those who do always, without fail, wind up regretting it in the end.</p><p>Before Pascal can incite the monster’s rage by refusing, however, Henry lets out a tinkling laugh and his flat, human teeth sharpen into his monstrous ones before their very eyes.    He grins a shark-like grin before he very purposefully steps over the threshold and into the shop, his hooves clacking against the floorboards like wooden clogs.</p><p>Pascal swallows.  Percy shivers.  And then, a look exchanged between them, they follow the monster inside.</p><p>It’s… interesting, to say the least.  The grandmothers show no sign of fright as they behold the child of the deerman, but neither do they seem comfortable in his presence.  Percy takes a seat, rubbing his hand rhythmically over his knees.  Pascal watches Henry with eagle-sharp eyes as Henry hums, walking about the room and touching all the bottles and beakers of things.  The poor apothecary looks like he wants to tell him off but is too scared to incur the monster’s wrath, leaving himself to suffer in silence as he watches sooty fingers leave black marks on every surface in the room.  Tension is thick on the air as the five of them—four humans and a beast—each wait for someone else to speak. </p><p>Percy finally does, as it’s his life on the line.  He clears his throat.  “So… it appears that the deerman will cross the barrier again on the first night of the full moon.  We have until then to make and execute a plan to… well… save my life.”</p><p>***</p><p>The place to begin, they all agree, is coming to an understanding of exactly what kind of enemy Percy has made.  The deerman is ancient and powerful, the grandmothers know that much—but what he is and what caused his fury are as much a mystery to them as they are to Percy.</p><p>Henry hums.  “Ever heard of the Fae?” he asks, clicking his teeth together as he watches Percy with his large, blue eyes.</p><p>Percy contemplates this.  “I thought the Fae didn’t like silver,” he says at long last.</p><p>A snort.  “I never said we <em>were</em> Fae.”</p><p>“Oh.  Then why mention them?”</p><p>“If you understand the Fae then you understand something about us.”  Henry raises a hand and as if on cue a cloud passes over the sun, the skies dimming outside the windows.  “We are not of this world, therefore we do not obey its rules.  We are governed by our own laws—the laws of monsters.”</p><p>The grandmothers’ eyes are sharp as the watch Henry’s every move.  “How many of you are there?” Ernesta asks.</p><p>“How many humans are there?” Henry counters, his dimples winking as he smiles, sharp.  “We are many, and we are strong—if it weren’t for the barrier and our own hatred of allying ourselves with one another we’d have taken over this world long ago.”</p><p>“I see.  So most of your kind are like the deerman, I presume.  Solitary beasts who preside over their own territory.”</p><p>“I’m not,” Henry says, and then tilts his head to the side.  “But most of them are, yes.”  He leans back in his chair, letting the front legs lift from the floor as he trails his sooty fingers over the bottles at his side.  Pascal’s eyes narrow.</p><p>Percy frowns, brow pinched.  “How likely is it that we could convince another of your kind to rise up against the deerman?” he asks.</p><p>“Very much not.  You’ll find plenty of monstrosities who hate my father, but none of them would ally with another monster to take him down let alone a human.”</p><p>Hm.  Percy crosses his arms and leans back as well, thoroughly stumped.  Henry is still playing with the bottles and Pascal is beginning to develop a twitch in his eye—a moment later he manages to overcome his fear and snap, “If you break it you’re paying for it.”</p><p>Henry just laughs, fingers never slowing.  Until suddenly he goes quiet, his face going slack as he stares out the window.</p><p>“What, what is it?” Percy asks.</p><p>A breath, and then… “I believe… I may have a plan?”</p><p>The grandmothers lean forward, Eva’s hand on Ernesta’s forearm.  “Which is…?” Ernesta asks.</p><p>Henry slowly lowers his chair all the way back to the floor.  “…To kill the deerman,” he says.</p><p>All is silent for a moment, until Percy lets out a low, surprised whistle.  “We can do that?” he asks.</p><p>Henry tuts his tongue.  “Of course.  It’s not easy and it’s not permanent, but it can be done.”</p><p>“How?” Ernesta asks, voice unflinching behind her veil.</p><p>Henry stands again, and Percy watches closely as the monster begins to pace.  “Ever heard of the Old Gods?” he asks.</p><p>“I thought Gods couldn’t be killed,” Percy says.</p><p>Again, a snort.  “I never said we <em>were</em> Gods.”</p><p>Percy pouts.  “Not Fae, not Gods—what does that leave?”</p><p>“Hm.  A good question.”  Henry turns back around and on his face is a crooked, dimpled smile.  Percy’s heart picks up in his chest, beating wildly against his ribs at the sight.  Fear, he thinks—or anticipation.  “Maybe,” Henry says, and his eyes are locked on Percy just as Percy’s are locked on his, “we’re just monsters.  Nightmares in the dead of night.”</p><p>Percy rolls his eyes.  “You’re too pleasant to be a nightmare,” he says, completely without thought.  He realizes a moment later what he’s done and slaps a hand over his mouth.</p><p>The monster just laughs. “You flatter me.”</p><p>Good gods.  Percy presses his fingers to his lips, trying to smother a smile that is threatening to break free.  He’s been flattering the monster yes—because he wants to stay in Henry’s good graces.  Still… somewhere deep down he knows that his words weren’t exactly a lie.</p><p>He pushes the thought from his mind.  “You never answered my question.  How do we kill the deerman?”</p><p>Henry grins, all sharp teeth and cutting dimples and blue, blue eyes.  “Well.  Like the Old Gods, there are certain rituals that can be performed to contain the deerman, to put him in a deathlike state.  The humans used to know the rituals but they gave up the knowledge when they made a truce with the deerman ages ago.  If we can find the knowledge again, then—and only then—will we have a shot.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Part Three: The Deerbaby</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Just before sunset, after hours of discussion and another quick meal, Henry announces that he needs to get back.</p>
<p>“I can’t be here when the night falls and the moon comes out,” he says, his smile twisting slightly.  “If my dear father figures out I’m with you…”</p>
<p>“I understand,” Percy says, his voice quiet.  They then come to an agreement—they’ll meet again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, for as long as it takes to figure out how to save Percy’s life. </p>
<p>In the meantime, it’s been a long, long day, and Percy doesn’t plan to sleep any time soon.  He waves the monster off, watching as Henry slips into the tree line and disappears just like that, as if he was never there at all.  But he was, Percy knows he was—he’s been broken of the illusion that any of this is a dream.  He can’t brush it off.  Not anymore.</p>
<p>He sighs.  Then, hefting his violin on his back, he begins to trek in the opposite direction of the monster, heading out of the village and down toward the docks that the neighboring port city boasts.</p>
<p>It’s late, when he arrives, but the docks and the surrounding establishments are nigh alive with rambunctious sailors, all drunk on the gold from their shipments, celebrating a job well done and the boons thereof before they head out on their voyages once more.  Percy ducks around a triad singing some warbling shanty in deep, pensive voices while another man runs after them with a fresh decanter of beer, ready to pour it into the mugs they’re waving about.  Percy shakes his head.</p>
<p>Moving on, he peers into barrooms and inns, searching for a familiar face or two.  He knows the <em>Eleftheria</em> is moored in the bay right now—his Uncle’s silver delivery from Scipio arrived a few days previous.  It stands to reason that the crew is around here <em>somewhere</em>…</p>
<p>A high voice calls a name that sounds vaguely like his own, and Percy turns, squinting.  A moment later he’s hit by a veritable wall of youthful excitement.  <em>Ah</em>, he thinks.  <em>There we go</em>.</p>
<p>“Hello, Georgie,” Percy says, tapping the ten-year-old boy on the shoulder.  Georgie lets go of his waist immediately, giving Percy room to shift his violin to his front and turn his back to the kid.  A moment later he has the child up in a piggy-back, hiking him up with his hands under the kid’s knees.</p>
<p>“Where are the others?” Percy asks, and Georgie’s excited hand points past Percy’s head toward one of the taverns.  Percy nods—he sees them now.  Ebrahim and a few of the others are sitting around a table out front, drinks in hand, laughing uproariously at some story or other.  Percy grips Georgie tighter, making sure he’s stable, and then heads off toward them.</p>
<p>They catch sight of him before he reaches them, the crowd of them standing up and circling around him, all yelling various greetings.  Percy smiles, nodding along, waiting for his turn to speak.</p>
<p>It comes when Scipio arrives from somewhere inside, coming up to Percy and patting his cheek.  “It’s good to see you, kid,” he says, his smile wide, as if they hadn’t seen each other in months rather than days.  “What brings you here?”</p>
<p>Percy swallows.  He’s feeling a lot better than he did this morning, but with Georgie’s weight on his back he’s starting to get a little shaky, so he lets the kid down.  He ruffles the kid’s hair, smiling a little, before turning to face Scipio straight on.</p>
<p>“I’m in a bit of trouble,” he admits.  “And I need a favor.”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>Percy leaves the port with four bottles of rum clanking in a rucksack beside his violin.  There’s one for each week until the full moon, more or less.  It’s not moonshine, but the crew knows their alcohol and it is high quality.  Well… perhaps ‘high quality’ is not the right term.  It was made to get you drunk, and by the grace of god will it get the job done.</p>
<p>It’s far past midnight by the time that Percy gets back to the village, making his way slowly into the Apothecary so as to not wake Pascal in the back room.  He sets the rucksack down by the door, and leans against the door frame for a long moment, feeling exhausted down to his bones.  It’s been a long day.  Days.  Week.  Year.</p>
<p>According to Scipio, encountering something like the deerman is more than just abominable bad luck.  Scipio doesn’t subscribe to the superstitions of the villagers—scorns them a bit, in fact—but he’s sailed enough of the seas to know that there are things about this world that do not fit into human understanding.  Green flashes and sea serpents and the like.  He made it very clear that the <em>Eleftheria</em> isn’t going anywhere for the foreseeable future, and to contact him should Percy require any additional help.</p>
<p>Percy had thanked him, and made sure to get a hug before he headed out again.  At the moment they have no leads as to how to actually execute their plan of killing the deerman, but as soon as they do… well.  Percy is sure they’ll need as much help as they can get.</p>
<p>Sighing to himself, Percy scrubs his hands down his face.  Then he wanders towards the back to take the spare bed, falling into it with a little too much enthusiasm.</p>
<p>In the morning he’s up early, washing his face in the water basin on the dresser.  He scrubs at the soot-print on his forehead for a long moment, unable to rid himself of it completely, before he sighs and gives up.  He then heads into the front to carefully pick at the fruit that Henry left for him before he headed out the day prior. </p>
<p>It’s nice, as far as mornings go.  The sun is brighter today, the last of the clouds having gone on their way and the wind having settled—</p>
<p>—but that might not be a good thing, now that Percy thinks about it.  He worries for a moment that Henry won’t come, after all, unwilling to cross the barrier in full sunlight.  What will he do if the deerman’s child forfeits the alcohol and doesn’t return? </p>
<p>…Live a very short, very sad life with a very painful end, he supposes.</p>
<p>Alas, he needn’t have doubted.  It isn’t three minutes later that he hears the tinkle of the bell, cloven hooves clacking on the wooden floor of the shop.  He stands, fruit in hand, and wanders out to meet Henry before he and Pascal can start snapping at one another.</p>
<p>Henry, he finds, is already holding one of the bottles of rum.  It’s uncorked, the amber liquid shining, and he’s sniffing at it appreciatively.  “You <em>must</em> tell me where you got this,” he says.</p>
<p>Percy can’t help his snort.  “If I tell you, you’ll just go out and rob them, and then what use would our deal be?”</p>
<p>Henry laughs, his smile dancing on his lips.  “Touché, my dear, touché,” he says.  Then he leans in and winks one blue eye and says, “At least you know how to keep the mystery alive.”</p>
<p>Percy laughs, a low chuckle that turns halfway through into a cough as he realizes with a start that he’s forgotten to be scared altogether.  He straightens, schooling himself into seriousness—this is still a child of the deerman, after all.  He must remain vigilant.</p>
<p>Henry is still smiling, though a little wryly, as Percy guides him to a seat in the back so that Pascal can open his shop to the public.  He’s been asking around about rituals and such in the deermen’s realm, he says, sitting, and he has a lead or two for them to follow.  Books, mostly—tomes that the other occupants of the Otherworld recall from ages past.  The likelihood of any of them being around still, and anywhere nearby to boot, is small indeed, but it’s somewhere to start.</p>
<p>And start they do, writing missives to send with Marco down the coast, asking after any traces of any such books.  Then they pack up the empty rucksack, rum stowed away under the spare bed for later, and head off into the city.</p>
<p>It’s as much of a journey as it was last night, though now the sun is out and Percy finds himself breathing a little heavily as sweat prickles at his skin.  He swallows and tries to pace himself, lest he cause a fit—who knows what the monster beside him will do if that happens.  Leave him?  Laugh?  Rethink his non-existent human-eating habits and eat him?  Percy doesn’t know, and he doesn’t want to find out.</p>
<p>They’re walking past the docks when Percy recalls Scipio’s offer to help out.  He bites his lip, debating it.  Not many of the crew mates of the <em>Eleftheria</em> are literate, but Scipio and Ebrahim, the navigator, are.  The more people they have looking the faster the search will go.  But on the other hand, is it wise to introduce the men to a monster?  Even one as relatively tame as Henry?</p>
<p>…The men can hold their own, Percy decides, after a moment of deliberation.  He’s seen Scipio scare off drunk and angry men twice the size of either of them with nothing but the knife he keeps in his belt for cutting ropes.  He’ll be okay.</p>
<p>With this decided, Percy slips around the early morning crews preparing to set sail and heads into the Merry Jack, the inn where Scipio said they were staying.</p>
<p>He’s not sure what he expects to happen when Scipio comes face to face with a monster for the first time, especially considering the rather… underwhelmingly monstrous face that Henry is currently wearing.  Some tension, some unease, same as Pascal, he guesses. </p>
<p>That doesn’t happen.  Instead, Scipio offers his hand to shake, wearing a terrifying pirate face for all of two seconds before it slips away and he visibly relaxes, seemingly entirely at ease with Henry as Henry eyes the hand. </p>
<p>“Do you think it wise, to shake hands with me?” Henry asks, a smirk crawling across his face.</p>
<p>“I don’t think there is anything to fear from you,” Scipio says, voice softer than Percy thinks it should be when confronting the son of a literal nightmare.</p>
<p>Henry smirks wider, and then, laughter pealing out of his throat, he leans back on his hooves and his face <em>splits</em>, yawning wide open.</p>
<p>Percy yelps, stumbling back.  He casts a wild look at Scipio, but Scipio is, somehow, unmoved.  The man simply waits, patient, until the silence has stretched into awkwardness and Henry just… closes his mouth again.  His smirk is faltering now, turning confused, and Percy frowns in confusion as well, watching the two of them as the monster then slowly reaches forward to shake hands. </p>
<p>It’s… very polite.  Cordial.  And Scipio… he nods, as if they’ve come to some understanding, one that Percy is not privy to.  “Let’s go,” Scipio says, and begins to lead them away to the city’s library.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The library has old books aplenty, but searching through the card catalog is a harrowing process and they’ve hardly made any progress by the time the sun begins to creep down under the horizon.  They decide to break for the day, to check in with Pascal to see if there has been any return on their missives down the coast.</p>
<p>There hasn’t, but then again it’s only been one day.  Time is slim but it isn’t up yet.</p>
<p>Percy watches Henry head off into the forest for the second day in a row, carrying with him a bottle of rum.  He thinks, offhand, that perhaps he should head back to the silversmith’s cabin to check in with his Aunt and Uncle—he’s missed many hours of work in the past few days, a fresh debt added on top of so many others that have accumulated over the years.  He owes them a great deal, and it pains him to be slacking, but this is too important to leave to the wayside.  He’ll have to go back and beg their forgiveness later.</p>
<p>Assuming, of course, that he survives the deerman.</p>
<p>Percy lets out his breath, eyes rising to the stars and the waning moon high, high above.  That is a big assumption indeed.</p>
<p>By morning, one of their missives has been returned, with no news in the affirmative.  Another arrives as Percy is eating a quick breakfast of nuts and jerky, again with a negative response.  He sighs, scooping them both up and shoving them into his pocket.  Then he goes out to await Henry’s arrival, standing at the edge of the forest with his sweater on over one of Pascal’s shirts.  He’ll take it off later as they’re walking to the city, he’s sure, when the sun starts to burn off the morning mist, but for now the air is crisp and cool and he’s a bit chilled.</p>
<p>He takes his eyes off the trees for a moment, looking back toward the village to see if anyone is out and about yet, and when he looks back there are not one but two figures moving toward him from the depths of the wilderness, antlers and clawed, blackened hands breaking through the light mist.  He swallows but stands fast as they materialize into Henry and Felicity.  A blink and gone are the antlers, the claws, the soot—but not the hooves, which leave broken crescent marks in the mud that slowly disappear again when Percy glances away.</p>
<p>Percy nods to Henry, whose lips quirk up into a smile.  He shows no sign of whether or not he’s drunk his rum yet, no obvious hangover, but then again, Percy isn’t sure if alcohol even affects him the same as it would a human.  Felicity, meanwhile, is looking very human-like with a pair of half-circle spectacles perched on her freckled nose.</p>
<p>“Are you here to… help?” Percy asks, unsure, glancing between the two of them.</p>
<p>Felicity rolls her eyes.  “’Help’ is an odd way of putting it, but yes.  I’m here to make sure my stupid brother doesn’t get in too much trouble.”</p>
<p>Henry snorts.  “As if.  She wants to watch me screw everything up and fall flat on my face.”</p>
<p>“That, too,” Felicity says mildly, and then her smile sharpens into a wicked grin, as if she’d find much pleasure in such a thing.</p>
<p>Percy swallows.  “Well.  In that case we’ll just… be off, I suppose,” he says, and off they go.</p>
<p>This day goes about as well as the last, with a lot of searching and not much yield.  At least until they come back to the Apothecary, that is.  They’ve received a reply to one of their missives, stating that they have one of the tomes in question and <em>would you like us to ship it to you</em>?</p>
<p>Percy scribbles a quick <em>yes, please</em> and gives it to Pascal, who gives it to Marco with a small gold coin that Percy promises he will pay the man back for later, if and when all of this has died down.  Percy watches Marco ride off into the dusk, hoping against hope that this means their luck is turning.</p>
<p>On the morning of the third day, Percy has his breakfast and again goes to wait for Henry at the edge of the forest.  Again from the depths of the trees come two figures, materializing in the mist, except this time as they walk closer Percy realizes that Felicity has something bundled in a wool blanket and slung across her chest.</p>
<p>“What’s that?” Percy asks, apprehensive, as she comes closer. </p>
<p>“The scourge of the earth,” Henry says, voice low and dangerous, and Felicity rolls her eyes.</p>
<p>“He is <em>not</em>.  Here,” she says, and steps forward, easing back the blanket.  Nestled inside, sleepy eyes slow-blinking, is the tiniest baby Percy has ever seen in his entire life.  It has light, wispy hair and tiny nubs for antlers, the least monstrous monster he’s seen yet.  It crinkles its little nose, clearly unpleased at the low light of the misty morning.</p>
<p>Percy feels his heart melting.  He’s not allowed to hold the babies that stay at the nursery during the day while their parents work the fields—the nursemaid saw him have a fit once and forbid him from it.  He likes to go in and play with them, all the same, though; there’s something very comforting about seeing a tiny human, even one with hooves and antlers.</p>
<p>And then, of course, it opens its face from forehead to chin, and it <em>screams</em>.</p>
<p>Percy jerks back, very nearly tripping over his own boots in his haste.  Henry laughs at the sight, saying, “I told you!” as Felicity sighs and cradles the baby to her chest, awkwardly trying to rock it back to sleep. </p>
<p>“Is it… going to stop?” Percy asks, as the wails only grow louder.</p>
<p>“Not likely,” Henry says, dismissive, and begins walking toward the village.</p>
<p>They’ve attracted a few looks from the people out going about their morning business by the time they reach the Apothecary.  The baby is well-bundled, but Percy still stands anxiously at Felicity’s front, hiding it from view.  Having the little thing is going to put a bit of a dent in their day—they’re liable to be thrown out of the city library if they bring a bawling baby in. </p>
<p>Thankfully they don’t have to try, as there is a package waiting for Percy at the Apothecary, having been delivered alongside a note just minutes before.  Felicity rocks the baby as he unfolds the note and Henry pries open the wax seal on the paper package with a blackened claw.  <em>You</em><em>’re the first person to ask after this book in four hundred years</em>, the note says.  <em>Keep it</em>.</p>
<p>Percy hums, folding the note into his pocket.  He watches with a tense anticipation as Henry struggles to unwrap the book.  Will it contain the rituals they seek?  Will he find what he needs here to kill the deerman?</p>
<p>Is his salvation nestled somewhere within these pages? </p>
<p>Percy bites his lip as the tome is finally freed.  “Here,” Henry says, handing it over.</p>
<p>It’s… small.  Small and very, very old—its pages are so thin they’re almost translucent, liable to crack and crumble under Percy’s thumb.  He swallows, turning past the title page to the table of contents…</p>
<p>…only to find that it’s written in a tongue that he doesn’t know, something with an alphabet of dots and scribbles that he can make neither head nor tails of.</p>
<p>He flips forward a bit, hoping that things will become clear or, at the very least, legible.  They don’t.  The script doesn’t change, all but the page numbers drawn in the same strange shapes by a sure hand.  “…I can’t read this,” he says finally, a frown on his lips.</p>
<p>“Let me see,” Henry says, and plucks it from Percy’s hands.  He bites his tongue, turning the book this way and that until Felicity sighs and snatches it from him in turn, holding it in one hand as she pats the crying baby with her other.</p>
<p>“I don’t recognize this script,” she says, after a moment.  “It might be a personal shorthand, or an obscure alphabet.  Have you anyone here who is good with languages?”</p>
<p>“The grandmothers might be able to help,” Pascal says, leaning over to see.  “They’ve been a great many places.  I’ll send Marco to fetch them.”</p>
<p>Percy nods, and settles in to wait, his skin prickling with the feeling of being so close and yet so far at the same time.</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>The grandmothers, when they come, are again dressed all in black, with their veils drawn across their faces.  “You’ve brought a baby of the deerman across the barrier?” Ernesta asks, the moment she steps over the threshold, voice sharp. </p>
<p>Percy glances at Felicity and the little one, who is still fussing.  “Yes?” he says, unease beginning to crawl up his spine.  “Should we not have?”</p>
<p>Eva murmurs something, pressing a hand to Ernesta’s arm.  A moment later Ernesta steps aside, allowing Eva to walk slowly up to the daughter of the deerman and the infant on her chest.  The hunched old lady raises a gnarled hand, a clear question.</p>
<p>Felicity and Henry exchange an indecipherable look.  Then Henry huffs and says, “Maybe she can make the little goblin be quiet.”</p>
<p>Felicity rolls her eyes, but she lifts the baby from its sling all the same, passing it over.  Eva speaks in lyrical Catalan, stroking bent fingers down the baby’s cheek as Ernesta fetches the book, opening it with care.  For a moment nothing changes—the baby cries and the book remains illegible.  Then, slowly, Eva begins to rock the little one and the cries begin to taper off.</p>
<p>Staring, Percy lets his shoulders untense.  Henry’s mouth has dropped open, his eyes wide—they exchange a glance before Ernesta clears her throat, capturing their attention.</p>
<p>“It’s a basic cypher,” she says, tapping a page.  “I saw similar ones in the underground resistance, before we were thrown out of our home and told never to return.  It will take some time, but we can decipher it for you.”</p>
<p>Percy nods, eager.  “Would you?  Perhaps the table of contents, to begin with?”</p>
<p>Ernesta nods as well, taking up the parchment that Pascal passes over.  At some unspoken cue, she passes it along to Eva and takes the baby in turn, allowing Eva to begin the work.</p>
<p>“Has the little one a name?” Ernesta asks, settling in a chair.  The baby, now sucking on one little thumb with its human mouth, snuffles.</p>
<p>“Adrian,” Felicity says.  Then she purses her lips.  “At least… that’s the one we’ve given him.”</p>
<p>Percy blinks.  He hadn’t had cause to wonder until now why the children of the deerman had such human names, but he probably should have.  “Who named you?” he asks, before he can stop himself.</p>
<p>“Henry named me, and I him,” Felicity says.  “We both chose Adrian.”</p>
<p>Ernesta hums.  “It is wise, to name the little one.  Names have power—it is said that when something is nameless, it is infinite and untouchable, and cannot be killed.  When it is named, however… it becomes real.  Solid.  Vulnerable.”</p>
<p>She pauses, thoughtful, her careful hands a juxtaposition to the threat in her words.  “That is why the humans gave your father the name ‘the deerman’.  To cut him down into a more human shape.  But there is also a flip side to naming something.  Names are familiarity, you see—name something and it becomes a part of you.  Part of your life, your history.  Part of your story.”</p>
<p>“…What about if you name yourself?” Henry asks, his blue eyes dark with something that Percy cannot place.</p>
<p>A moment of silence but for the baby’s sucking and the sound of a pencil on parchment.  Then Ernesta hums.  “To name yourself… it is to reject the imperative of others.  To give shape to yourself.  It is considered taboo, because it means you are beholden to no one—you’ve turned your back on your family and friends.”</p>
<p>“But you… you’re free, if you name yourself?” Henry asks.  There is something almost hungry in his gaze now.</p>
<p>Ernesta nods, her veil dipping.  “Yes.  Free.  But at what cost?”</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>That night, when the sun has set and the moon is high, Percy walks into the front of the Apothecary to find Pascal frowning over a small glass bottle, a cleaning rag in his hand. </p>
<p>“Everything okay?” Percy asks, pausing where he stands.</p>
<p>Pascal snorts.  “Your friend likes to mess with me,” he says, looking sour. </p>
<p>“How so?”</p>
<p>Pascal thrusts out the bottle, which has a single black fingerprint on it, identical to the one that is still on Percy’s forehead.  Pascal wipes it away with the cloth, lips pursed.</p>
<p>Percy stares at the clean glass, then glances up to Pascal.  “I don’t understand.  What’s the issue?”</p>
<p>“This!” Pascal says, brandishing the bottle, and when Percy looks back the soot-print is there again, as if it were never cleaned off at all.  “Damn deerchild…” he says.</p>
<p>A smile creeps up Percy’s lips quite without his permission.  “I think that means he likes you,” he says.</p>
<p>Pascal sighs.  “I suppose it’s better than the alternative,” he mutters, and then casts a shrewd look at Percy.  “You’ve had a rough time of it recently.  Been taking care of yourself?”</p>
<p>From anyone else, such a question would be a poorly disguised indication of unease.  Percy is quiet, with a habit of staying on the sidelines and keeping his head down, but his illness is not—he’s well-known around the village for it, for pitching into fits and frightening the townspeople.  It’s a terribly conspicuous secret.  And the things the people say when they think he can’t hear, lord.  Demons, devils, ghosts… they have all sorts of fanciful ideas about it all. </p>
<p>Pascal, thankfully, has never subscribed to the more superstitious of the ideas about Percy’s illness.  When he asks if Percy is taking care of himself, he means it sincerely.  He knows firsthand how much a fit takes out of Percy, how rough they are and how he aches afterward.</p>
<p>Wanting to answer honestly, Percy clears his throat and takes the bottle, swiping at the soot-stain.  “It’s… not ideal, I’ll admit that.  But I feel much better than I did, and we’ve a direction to go, at least, so…”</p>
<p>Gaze still shrewd, Pascal nods.  He seems to understand what goes unspoken—that Percy is doing as well as he can for the awful situation he’s found himself, and that he’s doing everything in his power to keep from fits.  Whether he’ll be successful remains to be seen, but he has some measure of hope.  That he’ll keep the fits away, and find the rituals he needs, and perhaps even survive to see the next waning moon.</p>
<p>Percy turns in not long after that, falling again into the spare bed like a man on a mission.  He blinks, and rolls onto his back, and there… there’s the moon, shining just outside the window.  He gazes at it for a long moment before standing once more, taking silent steps forward.  Step, and step, and step, and suddenly he’s there, standing in the window as he looks up and up and up.  He sighs softly, eyes locked on the craters that make up the face of the man in the moon.  He blinks.</p>
<p>And the moon blinks back.</p>
<p>It’s a motion that seizes the terror in Percy’s gut and draws it upward, flooding his mouth with the taste of copper.  It’s like the moon’s cycle, waxing and waning, except all at once—like a great eye in the heavens, turned down toward the earth, lidded by the night itself for but a moment before it turns its roving stare on the world below.  As he watches it, it is watching him in turn, and Percy realizes with a second jolt of terror that it is growing larger, expanding in the sky until it has overtaken all the stars and the clouds and the velvety blackness of the heavens themselves, a great obelisk that stares hungrily down as it just—keeps—growing, wider and wider and wider, and he knows that he can’t run from its gaze, can’t hide from its sight, he knows that his breaths are numbered and his death, a horrible death, is upon him—</p>
<p>He wakes with a start, lying on the spare bed.  The moon outside the window is its normal size—it has hardly moved, as if he’s been asleep mere minutes, lying in a square of moonlight. </p>
<p>Breath caught tight in his throat, Percy jerks back, wresting his limbs from the liquid silver that is the pool of moonlight.  He knows the dream for what it is—a reminder that the deerman is coming for him.  A threat—that he won’t be so lucky as to escape a second time.</p>
<p>Percy shudders, clutching his sweat-soaked sleep shirt, his heart pounding in his chest.  He feels like he’s been stripped bare and thrust into a cage, like his every movement is being watched and he cannot run very far at all before the bars will slam into place.  He can’t speak, he can’t breathe—he is trapped, an animal caught in iron.</p>
<p>He spends the rest of the night huddled in the corner against the wall, his blankets crumpled beneath him, unable to move lest his skin be touched by the light of the moon.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Cheers, everybody!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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